Alice Potter
by Eilwynn
Summary: Four Fem Harrys. Four Houses. Some things change, and some things really don't. Alice is the Hufflepuff Fem Harry. Fem Harry. Hufflepuff Harry. Part of the Four Fem Harrys Project. Harry Potter x Tom Riddle. Tom Riddle is Different from Voldemort.
1. Alice One

Author's Note: Here is the plan.

I am going to write four Fem Harrys. Each one, for me, fits the perfect profile of a different Hogwarts house. Each will also have a different name, so readers can differentiate better. Based on their house profiling, they will each also have different wand woods and Patronuses. In all other respects, however, they will just be Harry. I will take that starting canvas and create further differences with it within the text itself. These girls will be similar yet dissimilar to the Harry that you know, and also similar yet dissimilar to each other.

I will make four different stories and rotate through chapters for each girl, telling her full story with her at the helm. I call this the Four Fem Harrys Project.

This document you're reading right now is the Hufflepuff Fem Harry.

Please note that this is a full canon rewrite. All canon information and unchanged aspects will be included. I will also be attempting to make the story as relatable and floating timeline as possible.

The final pairing for each girl will be Tom Riddle, different from Voldemort, partly because one of the only things all four girls will have in common is a connection to the same person - but in his younger human self, before some of the corruption and most of the crimes, I think the interest and potential changes would be far more pronounced.

* * *

 _Alice One_

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their niece on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all.

The sun rose over soft, neat English front gardens and flowers, over the dove-grey suburban house with its neat hedges and vines on the long street full of others just like it, a private gated homeowner's community. It crept over the front door with its bronze number four, through the lacy curtained windows and into living room, with its gentle colors of cream and mint green, its sofa, armchairs, little end tables, and big fireplace.

Everything almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantle piece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different colored bonnets. But Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a video game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother.

The room did hold certain signs of a small, dark-haired girl. She looked somber and unhappy in fancy clothes in one formal family dinner party portrait on one living room wall, playing the part of the perfect daughter next to Dudley The Perfect Son. She was also in a few pictures riding bikes or playing games with Dudley himself.

Otherwise, she was near invisible - a ghost present in no other photograph the family owned.

The small, dark-haired girl was Alice Potter, the Dursleys' niece, and she was asleep at the moment but not for long. Her Aunt Petunia was awake, and she immediately began pounding on the door, calling sharply.

"Up! Get up! Now!"

Alice woke with a start. Her aunt rapped on the door again.

"Up!" she screeched.

"I'm getting up," said Alice immediately and sleepily, sitting upright with frazzled hair and big eyes. She heard the clacking of Aunt Petunia's heels walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. She stared at the far wall sleepily and tried to remember the dream she had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. She had a funny feeling she'd had the same dream before.

Her aunt was back outside the door. "Are you up yet?" she demanded.

"Nearly," said Alice honestly.

"Well get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."

"Right," said Alice simply, sliding out of bed. She heard Aunt Petunia clack up the stairs again. Alice was not looking forward to Dudley's eleventh birthday - he hadn't been able to swing letting her come along, so it probably meant a day at Mrs Figg's - but this was not terribly important to the matter at hand.

Alice got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. She found a pair under her bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Alice was used to spiders because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where she slept. She'd been sent to this closet by her aunt and uncle immediately upon arriving in their house as a baby orphan, and she'd been living here ever since.

The Dursleys were strict, repressive, and chore-heavy. They didn't give her money or nice clothes or things; in fact, they sometimes bullied her. No, everything nice that Alice had, she felt gratefulness to her cousin for. Dudley was... well, a bit spoiled and he got into fights in school a lot. But he took good care of his surrogate sister. Since they were in the same class, he protected her from being bullied, made sure she had room for school friends and hobbies, and he used his endless supply of money from his parents to buy nice things she chose for her. Alice had a love for nice things and being pampered, a somewhat irrational one, so she especially enjoyed this.

She loved Dudley very much. In fact, he was the only family member she could say that about.

The cupboard was very small, and could be scary when it was dark. But it had its good points. She got to decorate the narrow, slanting space the way she liked, thanks to Dudley. Postcards received from friends and photographs of herself with friends and Dudley, both framed and not, decorated the walls in a great collage. A great pouf in the corner was surrounded by some of her favorite childhood storybooks, purchased by Dudley, and by writing implements like pens and journals.

Alice was a writer; she adored writing. There were also lots of little leaves and flowers around her space, because she loved nature and felt a general tenderness for everything living and foresty, loved all nature but especially nature walks, hikes, and gardening. Some nature photographs also took up spare space on her walls. Clothes, a ruefully embarrassing mess, littered the spare floor space.

She got dressed there in her cupboard. Alice naturally had thick and wild shiny black hair, almond-shaped bright green eyes, a thin friendly face, a tiny pixie-like body, dimpled knees, and glasses. Her forehead also carried a thin, lightning bolt shaped scar. She'd had it for as long as she could remember, it made her rather self conscious, and the first question she could ever remember asking her Aunt Petunia was how she had gotten it.

"In the car crash when your parents died," her aunt had said, "and don't ask questions."

 _Don't ask questions_ \- the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.

In fashion, some of Alice's highlights, chosen by her and paid for by Dudley, were loose threads, heavy sweaters with warm autumn hues, shoes so worn they no longer had tread, hair ribbons, wool scarves that tickled the neck, and complementary colors and patterned motifs.

Her hair was usually either put in low pigtails or put in a half-up boho. Her glasses were round black horn-rimmed glasses.

So, with glasses always included, one of her outfits could be a loose thread baggy asymmetrical shirt, a wool scarf, worn shoes, and a half-up boho. Another of her outfits could be a heavy sweater in warm autumn hues with a leaf pattern motif, and low pigtails tied with ribbons.

When she was ready for the day, she went down the stairs and down the hall, into the kitchen. A long gleaming combined kitchen-dining room white space with a plain and warm wood table at one end of it, that table was today almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Alice was turning over the bacon. As usual, he was disapproving, but blessedly today he said nothing and kept his thoughts to himself. Just as determinedly, Alice ignored him as well. He heaved himself down into a seat at the kitchen table and opened his morning newspaper.

Uncle Vernon was a big, red-faced man with a mustache and a frown, a sort of reverse Santa Claus with a housewife and a two story suburban home, an expensive car and a corporate suit and black hair instead of white.

Aunt Petunia was a thin, gossipy, bony and snobbish blonde woman with carefully sprayed perfume and carefully put-together, gleaming hair. She did a great deal of cooking, baking, and gardening.

Alice was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley was a pudgy, pink-faced boy with big sweaters, smooth blond hair, and tiny blue eyes. He looked innocent enough, but he wasn't - he loved video games, got into fights a lot, and could wrestle and box with the best of them.

Alice put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, calmly and uncomplainingly. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.

"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here, under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Alice, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, quickly pulled her plate into her lap in case Dudley turned the table over.

Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another _two_ presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? _Two_ more presents. Is that all right?"

Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work.

"That would make thirty-nine," Alice offered, trying to be helpful. But Dudley stormed to his feet, face flushed, and she leaned back quickly -

He closed his eyes and made a visible effort to calm down.

"Duddy likes to figure things out for himself!" Aunt Petunia hissed at Alice, who looked down, her face reddening painfully.

"Thirty-nine." Dudley sat down brusquely and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right, then."

Uncle Vernon chuckled.

"Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.

At that moment, the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Alice and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote controlled aeroplane, sixteen new video games, and a movie player. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone, looking both angry and worried.

"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs Figg's broken her leg. She can't take her." She jerked her head in Alice's direction.

Everything now water under the bridge between them, Alice and Dudley shared a hopeful glance. Unless he could swing Alice coming along, every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Almost every year, Alice was left behind with Mrs Figg, a little old lady that lived two streets away who Alice would have felt sorry for if she were not so terribly unnerving. She had a dark, dusty, cluttered house that smelled like medicine and was covered in loud, bad-tempered cats and dead cat photographs.

It was horrible. It was also very lonely, and Alice most hated feeling sad and lonely. Mrs Figg never seemed to like her or open herself up to her, and this made Alice feel distanced and self conscious.

"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Alice as though she'd planned this.

"Sorry," said Alice, head bowing and shoulders hunching a little.

"Hmph," said Aunt Petunia, and she turned to Uncle Vernon. "What are we going to do?"

"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the girl."

The Dursleys often spoke about Alice like this, as though she wasn't there - or rather, as though she was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug. She gave an exasperated little sigh, sat there patiently and waited for it to be over.

"What about what's-her-name, your friend - Yvonne?"

"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.

"You could just leave me here," Alice said softly - she'd be able to write out in the open, curled up in the warm dormer window looking out at the street's trees. But she immediately regretted having spoken, for Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.

"And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.

"I won't blow up the house," said Alice, bewildered, but they weren't listening.

"I suppose we could take her to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "and leave her in the car..."

"That car's new, she's not sitting in it alone..."

Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying - it had been years since he'd really cried - but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted. This method of getting things had always made Alice uncomfortable.

"Mummy, I... want... her... to... come," he yelled between huge, pretend sobs.

"Oh, my sweet, darling, sensitive little boy!" Aunt Petunia cried, flinging her arms around him. Dudley shot Alice a secretive, mischievous grin through the gap in his mother's arms.

Just then, the doorbell rang - "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically - and a moment later Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was the scrawny boy who usually held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Alice always had to remind herself that in other matters he was still usually a nice person. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.

Half an hour later, Alice was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' silvery-bluish, gleaming car, talking with a calm, warm smile and much dignity to Piers and Dudley. She was officially on the way to the zoo for the first time in her life. Her aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with her, and anyway Dudley had asked.

But before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Alice aside into the living room.

"I'm warning you," he said, putting his large purple face right up close to Alice's as Alice leaned back, her eyes wide with genuine alarm, "I'm warning you now, girl - any funny business, anything at all - and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."

"I'm not going to do anything," said Alice in a slightly shaken voice. "Really," she added, when Uncle Vernon looked unconvinced.

But Uncle Vernon didn't believe her. No one ever did.

The problem was, strange things often happened around Alice, and it was just no good telling the Dursleys she didn't make them happen.

Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Alice coming from the barber's looking as though she hadn't been at all, equally tired of hearing Uncle Vernon complain about it, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut Alice's hair so short she was almost bald, except for her bangs, which her aunt left "to hide that horrible scar." Even Dudley had teased Alice, who had gone to sleep very disheartened and dreading being laughed at in school the next day. The only thing she feared worse was being alienated by Dudley and her friends. Next morning, however, she had gotten up to find her hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. She had been given a week in her cupboard for this, even though she had tried to explain that she _couldn't_ explain how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time, back before Dudley and her friends began buying her clothes, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force Alice into a particularly ugly greying secondhand dress. The harder she't tried to pull it over Alice's head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet but certainly wouldn't fit Alice. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to her great relief, Alice wasn't punished.

On the other hand, she'd gotten into terrible trouble for that bullying incident two years ago. A bigger, older bully had cornered Alice on the playground, and even as Dudley had run over he'd tried to push her - and suddenly, hundreds of colorful butterflies had flown in front of his face. This had given Alice enough time to get on the defense and run away. As she'd run away, the butterflies had revealed themselves to be mirages, disappearing in puffs of smoke. A very bewildered letter had been sent home from Alice's headmistress, but her aunt and uncle had been furious. And all she'd been able to do was shout loudly to Uncle Vernon through the locked door of her cupboard.

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. When she was having fun with Dudley and Piers, as it was with her own school friends and her own hobbies, life was perfect.

While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things. People at work, Alice, the council, Alice, the bank, and Alice were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.

"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said as a motorcycle overtook them.

Alice decided to cautiously test the waters, remembering her dream from this morning. "Lucky thing they don't fly," she said, carefully casual, breaking away temporarily from talking with Dudley and Piers.

Uncle Vernon paused for a second, his face purpling - then he forced himself to nod, faux calm. "Yes," he said. "Yes, it is."

So that _was_ an off-limits thing. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than Alice asking questions, it was Alice talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon - they seemed to think she might get dangerous ideas. Even writing was barely allowed under Dudley protection.

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families; they swarmed toward the big gate entrance decorated with carved animal statues. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance, and then when Dudley broke out his wallet to pay for Alice and the smiling ice cream van lady frowned, they reluctantly bought her a small lemon sherbet twist ice cream.

Alice, Dudley, and Piers had fun walking the twisting, clay-like roads and the bridges of the zoo, looking at all the animals on display, smiling. It was a very nice morning. Dudley and Piers were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, though Alice was nowhere near close to feeling done with the zoo. They ate in the zoo restaurant, which was full of fake plastic trees with monkeys swinging from them and jungle noises from hidden speakers, and aside from Dudley having a tantrum that worried Alice quite frankly because his Knickerbocker Glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, everything went fine there too.

After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. The reptile house arced around in a C shape, all dark cold bricks inlaid with golden glowing glass tanks. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Alice wrapped her sweater tighter around herself; it was a bit chilly for her tastes in here, though the snakes didn't bother her anymore than the spiders had.

Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Their boyish excitement made Alice smile and shake her head a little.

Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can, but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.

Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.

"Do it again," Dudley ordered. The poor snake, Alice thought in exasperation, was just trying to sleep. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but in an impressive display of willpower the snake refused to acknowledge him.

"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.

Alice moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. She wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself, no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass, trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least she had plenty of other places to visit.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Alice's.

 _It winked_ ** _._**

Alice stared. Then she looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. She looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Alice a look that said quite plainly:

 _"I get that all the time."_

"I know," Alice murmured through the glass, though she wasn't sure the snake could hear her. "It must be really annoying."

The snake nodded vigorously.

"Where do you come from, anyway?" Alice asked.

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Alice peered at it.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

"Was it nice there?"

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Alice read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see - so you've never been to Brazil?"

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Alice made both of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T _BELIEVE_ WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.

"Out of the way, you," he told Alice aggressively. A survivor till the end, she neatly stepped aside. Piers and Dudley leaned right up close to the glass and began oohing and aahing.

The poor snake hissed at them irritably before sinking slowly down into its former torpor.

Alice thought she was in the clear. But then as they were all piling back into Uncle Vernon's car at the end of the day, Piers calmed down enough to say, "Alice was talking to it, weren't you, Alice?"

Alice gave him a cold, furious, simpering smile and Piers actually recoiled at the sudden, subtle change. "Is your mental health perfectly all right, Piers?" she asked in a dangerous, soft voice. "Now why would you go imagining up a silly thing like that?"

This was mostly vindictive. It was too late. Uncle Vernon had heard.

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting in on Alice. But Dudley quickly stepped between them. "She was helping me," he said in a tough guy's voice that hid fear. "She was talking to the snake, hoping it move for me."

Alice felt a sudden rush of warmth for her cousin.

"... Fine," Uncle Vernon snapped, holding himself back with a great, obvious effort. "She gets tonight and tomorrow in the cupboard. No meals. She's let out the following morning."

"But Dad -!"

"It was going to be two weeks in the cupboard with only one meal a day! Would you like me to make it so?" Uncle Vernon thundered in the black and creepy living room full of hunched black furniture shadows. Shadows crawled, too, across his face.

Dudley fell silent.

Uncle Vernon's eyes flashed in Alice's direction. " _Go!"_

Then he collapsed into an armchair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

* * *

Alice lay in her dark cupboard much later, staring at her watch. Her most practical request and gift from Dudley, more important even than her little food and gift luxuries, she used this every time she had a cupboard punishment. She would wait until a time she was sure everybody would be in bed, then she snuck out into the kitchen to steal food.

This was not any manifestation of Alice's true nature. This was survival instinct. She kept plastic bags full of food from nighttime thievery hidden underneath her bed during cupboard punishments.

She had other things like this. A bucket in the corner in case she had to pee outside her two allotted times a day out of the cupboard. A light bulb that always worked so that she could write during long afternoons in the cupboard. Bug spray for the particularly nasty spiders. The worst were the ones that got in her hair while she was sleeping.

Survival mechanisms.

Alice had lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as she could remember, ever since she'd been a baby and her parents had died in that car crash. She couldn't remember being in the car when her parents had died. Sometimes, when she strained her memory during long hours in her cupboard, she came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on her forehead. This, she supposed, was the car crash, though she couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. She couldn't remember her parents at all. Her aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course she was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.

When she had been younger, Alice had wandered countless streets just trying to stay away from home, had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take her away, but none of it was any use and it never happened; the Dursleys were her only family. Yet sometimes she thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know her. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny old man in a violet top hat had bowed to her once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Alice furiously if she knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at her once on a bus. A bald man in a very long, purple coat had actually taken her hand and kissed it in the street the other day, like she was a princess, and then walked away without a word.

The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Alice tried to get a closer look.


	2. Alice Two

Author's Note: My apologies, but for this chapter and the next, it was hard to credibly establish really clear differences between girls or from canon. I tried to make differences where I felt I rationally could. The first part of the chapter is more obviously different than the second part. Otherwise, for now just enjoy, and if it's any consolation once we hit the Diagon Alley chapter, differences start to get much bigger. By the time you hit the Hogwarts Express you will almost be reading four totally separate stories. They will never truly become the same again afterward.

For now, just enjoy the story and the subtle differences. That's what these first three chapters are all about.

Happy Thanksgiving! The purely Muggle, Dursley portion of the series is now done! Tomorrow is my twenty-fourth birthday, and as I plan on writing this series for a good long time, I wanted to start out my twenty-fourth year with all four Potter girls starting the section where they realize they're a witch. It's all witches from here, ladies and gentlemen. Let the magic begin.

* * *

 _Alice Two_

School ended and the summer holidays began. Alice spent as much time as possible outside with friends. Meanwhile, Dudley celebrated the beginning of summer in his own way. By the end of the second week, he had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote controlled aeroplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.

Dudley's gang took over the Dursley house, visiting it every single day, so she saw them a lot. They were all friendly to her, as Dudley's sister, but like Dudley most were rather big, dull fighters - Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon.

When September came, Alice would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in her life, she wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Alice, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school.

"I'm worried about you. I won't be there and it's supposed to be a pretty rough place," said Dudley, his eyes narrowed, sizing her up as if seeing if she could handle her new school as they stood on the staircase one afternoon.

"Oh, don't worry, Dudley," said Alice, warm, matter of fact, and reasonable, putting on her tough face. "I'll be just fine, don't fret about me." But Dudley didn't look convinced.

Alice was, after all, just a little girl.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy school uniforms, leaving Alice at Mrs Figg's. Mrs Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Alice watch television and gave her a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years. It was still fairly terrible, but less terrible than usual, Alice thought with a faint, resigned sigh.

That evening, Aunt Petunia handed Alice some plain grey skirt and jacket uniforms. "Your new school uniforms," she said brusquely, placing the neatly folded pile in Alice's arms in the front hall near the cupboard. Alice frowned. "Put them away and come out to the living room."

Dudley was assigned to parade around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.

As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up. Alice didn't trust herself to speak. She felt terrible for Dudley and was rather afraid of showing it, her hand over her mouth as she stared in silent horror.

* * *

The next morning, everyone sat down to breakfast. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.

"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.

"Make Alice get it."

"Get the mail, Alice."

"Make Dudley get it."

"Poke her with your Smelting stick, Dudley."

Alice dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and a letter for Alice.

Alice picked it up, brightly curious. She had gotten letters and postcards before, from school friends. But this letter seemed odd. First there was the address:

 _Miss A. Potter_

 _The Cupboard under the Stairs_

 _4 Privet Drive_

 _Little Whinging_

 _Surrey_

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp and no return address.

Turning the envelope over, Alice saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H. _Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus,_ said tiny Latin letters in a ribbon around the animals.

"Hurry up, girl!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.

Alice paused, looking back over her shoulder - and then snuck for her cupboard to store this strange letter away for later. Her uncle always read her mail before her, and she had never cared for it. There was no perfectly good reason she herself couldn't know the contents of this letter first.

But just as she reached her cupboard, a heavy hand fell on her shoulder and stopped her. She whirled around and gasped. Uncle Vernon had gotten impatient and was standing there thunderously, purple-faced, above her.

"Mail of yours, I take it?" he asked in a calm, quiet, dangerous voice.

Alice ducked her head, hunched her shoulders, and slowly handed the letter over along with the bill and the postcard. She followed him, somewhat frightened, back into the dining room, where he sat down.

He ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard. "Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk. Well, all right, girl, let's see your letter."

He ripped open the envelope, took out a piece of heavy parchment paper, shook it open with one hand and glanced at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.

"What is it? What's going on?" said Dudley eagerly. He tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.

"Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!"

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Alice and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.

"What's going on?" Alice asked discerningly, frowning.

"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

Alice paused - and took a deep, bracing breath. "... No," she said firmly, hands fisted against her fear. "I won't." She rarely caused such a fuss, but the Dursleys had never kept a letter from her before. That meant, ironically, that this was the letter probably most worth reading. It contained something the Dursleys actively didn't want her to know.

So… what was it they didn't want her to know?

"Let me see the letter!" demanded Dudley.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Alice and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the carpeted hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Dudley and Alice looked at each other - and Dudley motioned Alice to look in the kitchen door keyhole, closer to the staircase, perhaps feeling she deserved it more. She knelt before the keyhole. Then Dudley lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, her back to Alice in a kitchen table chair, "look at the address - how could they possibly know where she sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"

"Watching - spying - might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly. He was pacing up and down the kitchen, his face an even deeper shade of purple than usual, his temple working and his tiny dark eyes roving around madly as he thought hard.

"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want -"

Uncle Vernon paced silently.

"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer… Yes, that's best… we won't do anything…"

"But -"

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Especially not one of those nasty women! Didn't we swear when we took her in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

* * *

That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Alice in her cupboard.

"Where's my letter?" said Alice quickly, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to me?"

"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."

"... Uncle Vernon, it couldn't have been a mistake," said Alice earnestly, worried and concerned. "It had my cupboard on it."

"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, Alice jumped, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.

"Er - yes, Alice - about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking… you're really getting a bit big for it… we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."

"... Why?" said Alice cautiously, leaning backward.

"Don't ask questions!" snapped her uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."

The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. Alice moved everything she owned from the cupboard to this room. As she moved upstairs, Dudley was nice enough to move some of his things downstairs; he was clearing his old toys away for her and putting them in the basement, puffing with effort as he shoved them down the staircase.

Nearly everything Alice passed on her way up was broken. There was the month-old video camera. There was the small, working tank that Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog. There was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled. There was the large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for an air rifle, which also came from the second bedroom with its end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Many, many books also came down the staircase and were consigned to the basement. They were the only things that looked as though they'd never been touched.

Meanwhile, everything Alice owned was still in near perfect working order, and her childhood storybooks were much more well worn. She thought it was because she had none of her own money and she wasn't allowed much - so she'd learned to be careful, and to treasure what she had. She pasted her postcard and picture collages everywhere around her new space, which was wonderfully big and warm and bright. She put her pouf in a bedroom corner, and surrounded it with her storybooks, journals and ink. Her little pieces of nature were scattered artfully around the room. More writing materials went on her desk by the window. She put her clothes and things in the wardrobe past the inside door mirror, her loose thread baggy asymmetrical shirts and big warm-colored sweaters, her worn shoes and wool scarves, her hair ribbons and hair ties, her little patterned pieces of clothing. There was also a large bed, a bedside table with a repaired alarm clock and a lamp for her glasses and her watch, and a desk beside the curtained upstairs window.

Alice sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday she'd have given anything to be up here. Today she'd rather be back in her cupboard with that letter than up here without it.

* * *

Next morning at breakfast, everything was rather quiet. Dudley seemed unusually hesitant around the dark moods of the rest of his family. Alice was thinking sorrowfully about this time yesterday. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Alice, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! 'Miss A. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive -'"

With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall. Alice stayed in her seat matter of factly. She was curious to see the letter, not full of testosterone and stupid. She and Aunt Petunia sat there, exasperated and deadpan, as they heard Uncle Vernon and Dudley fighting and wrestling each other for the letter in the hall, accompanied by the frequent bangs of the Smelting stick.

At last, Uncle Vernon seemed to have won, because they heard his heaving gasps for breath, the fighting ceased, and then they heard him wheeze, "Dudley - go - just go."

Alice sat there in her seat, the cogs in her head turning behind her sharp eyes. Someone knew she had moved out of her cupboard and they seemed to know she hadn't received her first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time she'd make sure they didn't fail. She had a plan.

* * *

The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Alice turned it off quickly and dressed silently. She mustn't wake the Dursleys. She stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.

She was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first, but she wasn't stupid. Uncle Vernon would probably be sleeping at the foot of the front door; he was just that much of a control freak.

So she walked right up to the lump by the foot of the door, took a deep bracing breath, and shook it. Uncle Vernon jumped awake and stared up at her, wild-haired and red-eyed.

And Alice just started talking. She babbled on and on, about everything she could think of, bright and bubbly and cheerful, talking loudly over Uncle Vernon even as he began trying to shout in confusion over her and lights clicked on upstairs. At last, he stood, shouting, bewildered and outraged - and the path to the door outside was clear.

Alice suddenly stopped talking, broke, and ran for it.

She almost made it. But Uncle Vernon grabbed her round the waist and hauled her back away from the door. "No, girl!" he shouted. "You're not going _anywhere_!"

Alice could see the foot of the door more clearly now. Uncle Vernon had clearly been sleeping there to try to prevent Alice from doing exactly what she had tried to do. And lying there on the sleeping bag now, shoved through the mail slot, were three letters addressed in emerald green ink. She was too late.

Uncle Vernon ripped the letters into pieces before her eyes, shouted at her for about half an hour, and then told her to go and make him a cup of tea.

Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.

"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't _deliver_ then they'll just give up."

"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."

"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.

* * *

On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Alice. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in one of the bathrooms.

Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the front and back doors so no one could get out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked and jumped at small noises.

Alice wasn't sure who these so-called nasty women were, but Uncle Vernon must not want her to be one pretty badly.

* * *

On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Alice found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy, trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.

* * *

On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.

"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today -"

Something came whizzing down the red brick kitchen chimney near the table as he spoke and caught him sharply in the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Alice leapt into the air trying to catch one -

"Out! OUT!"

Uncle Vernon seized Alice around the waist and threw her into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.

"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"

He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, movie player, and computer into his sports bag.

Alice reached out and gave Dudley's hand a gentle squeeze, giving him a sympathetic look. He looked over at her and his sniffles quieted a little.

They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.

"Shake 'em off… shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling, and try as she might, not even Alice could calm him down. Dudley had never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on one of his video games.

Alice was used to all three of those things, most particularly having suffered cupboard punishments but in general never being treated as well, so she wasn't sure what to say. She felt sorry for Dudley.

Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. The city was full of hunched black shadows, boarded-up windows, "Keep Out" signs, and dangerous lamp-lit street corners. The hotel towered over them, looming and dark-windows, bigger than itself, one of the letters on its neon sign flickering. Dudley and Imogen shared a room with stiff, hard twin beds and damp, musty sheets, a small, square, plain room that somehow did nothing to assuage the feel of the rest of the place. Dudley snored, exhausted after his trying day, but Alice stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down through the blurry window at the red lights of passing cars illuminating the shadows of shady figures walking hunched along streets in the intersection far below, wondering…

* * *

They ate stale cornflakes and cold, tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next morning. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.

"Excuse me, but it was one of you Miss A. Potter? Only I got about a hundred of these at the front desk."

She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:

 _Miss A. Potter_

 _Room 17_

 _Railview Hotel_

 _Cokeworth_

Alice made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked her hand out of the way. The woman stared.

"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the falsely cheerful, bare little silverware-clinking, white-tablecloth dining room.

* * *

"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a dark green forest full of humongous trees and rocky roads. He got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of an empty and silent plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the open top of a multi-level parking garage after lots of long drives up inside ramps with sudden turns.

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, along a flat stretch of wet stone right near a cliff leading down to the sea, where the wind and occasional sea spray battered their car. He had then locked them all inside the car, and had disappeared into the tall curtains of grey rain moving toward them from the vast and unending silvery sky.

The rain reached them. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley sniveled.

"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a _television_."

Monday. This reminded Alice of something. If it _was_ Monday - and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of television - then tomorrow, Tuesday, July 31st, would be Alice's eleventh birthday. Of course, she was with the Dursleys, who never usually celebrated her birthdays - that was more of her friends' thing - last year on her birthday, the Dursleys had given her a coat hanger and an ugly old blouse of Aunt Petunia's that she'd been about to give away to charity. Still, you weren't eleven every day.

Uncle Vernon was back, dripping wet, and he was smiling eerily. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.

"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"

It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing over the cliff, across the iron-grey, foaming white, choppy waves that looked like they could bowl a boat right over, toward what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the dark, craggy rock was a creepy, tilted little stone shack with dark, gaping windows like staring eyes. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"

A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, down some steps leading down the side of the cliff to an old rowboat bobbing in the water below them.

"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"

It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.

The inside was horrible; the floor was made of dirt, the whole place smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, there was only a single sofa, and the fireplace it was in front of was damp and empty and seemed to swallow up the rest of the room in darkness. There were only two rooms, the other being a small bedroom with a suspiciously grey bed.

Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of crisps each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty crisp bags just smoked and shriveled up.

"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.

He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Alice privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer her up at all.

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the tiny, thick, filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the ugly, moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Alice was left to find the softest bit of floor she could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket. It was pure misery.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Alice couldn't sleep. She shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, her stomach rumbling with hunger - one of the worst feelings in the world. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which dangled over the edge of the sofa on his thick wrist, told Alice she'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. She lay and watched her birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter-writer was now.

Four minutes to go. Alice heard something creak outside. She hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although she might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house on Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that she'd be able to steal one somehow.

Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?

One minute to go and she'd be eleven. Thirty seconds… twenty… ten… nine - maybe she'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him - three… two… one…

BOOM.

The whole shack shivered and Alice sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.


	3. Alice Three

Author's Note: This was the chapter that was hardest to write credible differences for. But I can't rewrite the whole series and not include this incredibly important chapter. Consider this one final chapter of mostly the same for each girl before the differences from each other and from canon start coming fast.

There is at least one important difference from canon in this chapter that will start to echo out in repercussions later for each girl, though. Let me know if you spot it.

* * *

 _Alice Three_

BOOM. They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake.

"Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly.

There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands - now they knew what had been in the long, thin package he'd brought with them.

"Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you - I'm armed!"

There was a pause. Then -

SMASH!

The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.

A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair. He wore boots and a black leather jacket.

The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.

"Couldn't make us a cup of tea, could you?" he said casually in a thick West Country accent. "It's not been an easy journey…"

He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.

"Budge up, you great lump," said the stranger.

Dudley stood slowly, shaking - and went over to stand tremblingly in front of Alice, shielding her. Alice paused in surprise, looking at his back with great warmth. "Wh-what are you planning on doing with her?" Dudley stammered out, clearly petrified. "Are you going to hurt her?"

The giant seemed to gentle a little. "Maybe I didn't give enough credit," he admitted. "Don't worry, I don't mean her no harm."

"Duddy! Come over here!" Aunt Petunia was hissing.

Dudley looked back over his shoulder at Alice. "It's okay, Dudley," she said quietly. "You can go."

And so Dudley walked away to his parents. As he did, a huge gap widened between him and Alice, a gap that seemed somehow more than physical. Dudley went to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.

"Well, and here's Alice!" said the giant.

Alice looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.

"Last time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "You look a lot like your Dad, a true Potter, but you've got your Mum's eyes."

Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise.

"I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, you great prune," said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room.

Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.

"Anyway - Alice," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to you. Got something for you here - I might've sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."

From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Alice opened it slowly. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with the words Happy Birthday Alice written on it in green icing.

Alice looked up at the giant. She meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to her mouth, and what she said instead was, "Who are you?"

The giant chuckled.

"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

He held out an enormous hand and shook Alice's whole arm.

"What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no to something stronger if you've got it, mind."

His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled crisp bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Alice felt the warmth wash over her as though she'd sunk into a hot bath.

The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."

The giant snorted again, but said nothing. He instead passed the sausages to Alice, who was so hungry she had never tasted anything so wonderful, but she still couldn't take her eyes off the giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, she said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."

The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. And like I told you, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts - you'll know all about Hogwarts, of course."

"Er - no," said Alice.

Hagrid looked shocked.

"Sorry," Alice said quickly.

"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them that should be sorry! I knew you weren't getting your letters but I never thought you wouldn't even know about Hogwarts, for crying out loud! Did you never wonder where your parents learned it all?"

"All what?" asked Alice.

"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now wait just one second!"

He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall.

"Do you mean to tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this girl - this girl! - knows nothing about - about ANYTHING?"

Alice thought this was going a bit far. She had been to school, after all, and her marks weren't bad.

"I know some things," she said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."

But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Your parents' world."

"What world?"

Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.

"DURSLEY!" he boomed.

Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble." Hagrid stared wildly at Alice.

"But you must know about your mum and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."

"What? My - my mum and dad weren't famous, were they?"

"You don't know…. You don't know…" Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Alice with a bewildered stare.

"You don't know what you are?" he said finally.

Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.

"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the girl anything!"

A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.

"You never told her? Never told her what was in the letter Dumbledore left for her? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! And you've kept it from her all these years?"

"Kept what from me?" said Alice eagerly.

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.

Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.

"Ah, go boil your heads, both of you," said Hagrid. "Alice - you're a witch."

There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.

"I'm a what?" Alice gasped.

"A witch, of course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, " and a thumping good one, I'd say, once you've been trained up a bit. With a mum and dad like yours, what else would you be? And I reckon it's about time you read your letter."

Alice stretched out her hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Miss A. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. She pulled out the letter and read:

 _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

 _Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore_

 _(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

 _Dear Miss Potter,_

 _We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

 _Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

 _Yours Sincerely,_

 _Minerva McGonagall_

 _Deputy Headmistress_

Questions exploded inside Alice's head like fireworks and she couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes she stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"

"Galloping Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a carthorse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl - a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl - a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Alice could read upside down:

 _Dear Professor Dumbledore._

 _Given Alice her letter._

 _Taking her to buy her things tomorrow._

 _Weather's horrible. Hope you're well._

 _Hagrid_

Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone.

Alice realized her mouth was open and closed it quickly.

"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.

"She's not going," he said.

Hagrid grunted.

"I'd like to see a great Muggle like you stop her," he said.

"A what?" said Alice, interested.

"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. And it's your bad luck you grew up in a family of the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."

"We swore when we took her in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of her! Witch indeed!"

"You knew?" said Alice. "You knew I'm a - a witch?"

"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that - that school - and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frogspawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was - a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"

She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years.

"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as - as - abnormal - and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!

"Because you're just like her! I always knew it and this proves it! You're just as much of a freak as my sister was! Witches are Satanic, against the laws of nature! You know, I suppose, what they used to do to women they suspected were witches," she finished vindictively.

"Quite right," said Uncle Vernon in a hard voice. "Witches are unnatural women! They refuse to see their place in the world and -!"

"Then I am a witch!" Alice shouted defiantly, and the Dursleys paused in surprise. Alice's face twisted, her hands in fists, and as she heard this extra prejudice against females with magic, she there and then made herself a promise. "And I am going to be the best damn witch I can be - the best the world's ever seen! I'll work as hard as I have to, train as much as I need! I'm going to be a witch, what you called a nasty woman, and I'm going to be a powerful one!

"Oh… and blown up? You told me my parents died in a car crash." Alice's eyes narrowed.

"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily and James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Alice Potter not knowing her own story when every kid in our world knows her name, knows her as the Girl Who Lived!"

"But why? What happened?" Alice asked urgently.

The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious.

"I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble getting hold of you, how much you didn't know. Ah, Alice, I don't know if I'm the right person to tell you - but someone's gotta - you can't go off to Hogwarts not knowing."

He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.

"Well, it's best you know as much as I can tell you - mind, I can't tell you everything, it's a great mystery, parts of it…"

He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with - with a person called - but it's incredible you don't know his name, everyone in our world knows -"

"Who?"

"Well - I don't like saying the name if I can help it. No one does."

"Why not?"

"Gulping gargoyles, Alice, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went… bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was…"

Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.

"Could you write it down?" Alice suggested.

"Nah - can't spell it. All right - Voldemort." Hagrid shuddered. "Don't make me say it again. Anyway, this - this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started looking for followers. Got them, too - some were afraid, some just wanted a bit of his power, because he was getting himself power, all right. Dark days, Alice. Didn't know who to trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches… terrible things happened. He was taking over. 'Course, some stood up to him - and he killed them. Horribly. One of the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of. Didn't dare try taking the school, not just then, anyway.

"Now, your mum and dad were as good a witch and wizard as I ever knew - head boy and girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the mystery is why You-Know-Who never tried to get them on his side before - probably knew they were too close to Dumbledore to want anything to do with the Dark Side.

"Maybe he thought he could persuade them… maybe he just wanted them out of the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came to your house and - and -"

Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.

"Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad - knew your mum and dad, and nicer people you couldn't find - anyway…

"You-Know-Who killed them. And then - and this is the real mystery of the thing - he tried to kill you, too. Wanted to make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killing by then. But he couldn't do it. That's why you're the Girl Who Lived. Never wondered how you got that mark on your forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what you get when a powerful, evil curse touches you - took care of your mum and dad and your house, even - but it didn't work on you, and that's why you're famous, Alice. No one ever lived after he decided to kill them, no one except you, and he'd killed some of the best wizards and witches of the age - the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts - and you was only a baby, and you lived."

Something very painful was going on in Alice's mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, she saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than she had ever remembered it before, and she remembered something else, for the first time in her life: a high, cold, cruel laugh.

Hagrid was watching her sadly.

"Took you from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought you to this lot…"

"Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon. Alice jumped; she had almost forgotten the Dursleys were there. Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.

"Now, you listen here, girl," he snarled, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured - and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion - asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types - just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end -"

But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley - I'm warning you - one more word…"

In danger of being speared on the end an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent.

"That's better," said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor.

Alice, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.

"But what happened to Vol-, sorry - I mean, You-Know-Who?"

"Good question, Alice. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried to kill you. Makes you even more famous. That's the biggest mystery, see… he was getting more and more powerful - why'd he go?

"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Don't know if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, biding his time, like, but I don't believe it. People who was on his side came back to ours. Some of them came out of kind of trances. Don't reckon they could've done if he was coming back.

"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause something about you finished him, Alice. There was something going on that night that he hadn't counted on - I don't know what it was, no one does - but something about you stumped him, all right."

Hagrid looked at Alice with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Alice, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A witch? Her? How could she possibly be? She'd spent her life being protected by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if she was really a witch, why hadn't her aunt and uncle been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock her in her cupboard? If she'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had had to save her from every common schoolyard Muggle bully?

"Hagrid," she said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a witch."

To her surprise, Hagrid chuckled.

"Not a witch, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?"

Alice looked into the fire. Now she came to think about it… every odd thing that had ever made her aunt and uncle furious with her had happened when she, Alice, had been upset or angry… picked on by that bully, she'd somehow distracted him with a mirage leaving her time to get defensively away… dreading going back to school with that ridiculous haircut, she'd managed to grow it back… hating that ugly secondhand dress, she'd shrunk it until it no longer fit her… feeling sorry for that snake, it had suddenly become attracted to her and she'd been able to talk with it.

Alice looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at her.

"See?" said Hagrid. "Alice Potter, not a witch - you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."

But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight.

"Haven't I told you she's not going?" he hissed. "She's going to Stonewall High and she'll be grateful for it. I've read those books and she needs all sorts of rubbish - spell books and wands and -"

"If she wants to go, a great Muggle like you won't stop her," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily and James Potter's daughter going to Hogwarts! You're mad. Her name's been down ever since she was born. She's off to the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and she won't know herself. She'll be with youngsters of her own sort, for a change, and she'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had, Albus Dumbled -"

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HER MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon.

But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head. "NEVER -" he thundered, "- INSULT - ALBUS - DUMBLEDORE - IN - FRONT - OF - ME!"

He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Uncle Vernon - there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Uncle Vernon was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Alice saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.

Aunt Petunia screamed. Pulling Uncle Vernon and Dudley into the other room, she cast one terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.

Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.

"Shouldn't've lost me temper," he said ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant to turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left to do."

He cast a sideways look at Alice under his bushy eyebrows.

"Be grateful if you didn't mention that to anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm - er - not supposed to do magic, strictly speaking. I was allowed to do a bit to follow you and get your letters to you and stuff - one of the reasons I was so keen to take on the job -"

"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Alice.

"Oh, well - I was at Hogwarts meself, but I - er - got expelled, to tell you the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half and everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."

"Why were you expelled?"

"It's getting late and we've got lots to do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up to town, get all your books and that."

He took off his thick black coat and threw it at Alice.

"You can kip under that," he said. "Don't mind if it wriggles a bit. I think I still got a couple of dormice in one of the pockets."


	4. Alice Four

_Alice Four_

Alice woke early the next morning. Although she could tell it was daylight, she kept her eyes shut tight.

"It was a dream," she told herself firmly. "I dreamed a giant called Hagrid came to tell me I was going to a school for witches. When I open my eyes I'll be at home in my cupboard."

There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.

"And there's Aunt Petunia knocking on the door," Alice thought, her heart sinking. But she still didn't open her eyes. It had been such a good dream.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"All right," Alice mumbled, "I'm getting up."

She sat up and Hagrid's heavy coat fell off her. The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa, and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.

Alice scrambled to her feet, so happy she felt as though a large balloon were swelling inside her. She went straight to the window and jerked it open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn't wake up. The owl then fluttered onto the floor and began to attack Hagrid's coat.

"Don't do that."

Alice tried to wave the owl out of the way, but it snapped its beak fiercely at her and carried on savaging the coat.

"Hagrid!" said Alice loudly. "There's an owl -"

"Pay him," Hagrid grunted into the sofa.

"What?"

"He wants paying for delivering the paper. Look in the pockets."

Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets - bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags… finally, Alice pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.

"Give him five Knuts," said Hagrid sleepily.

"Knuts?"

"The little bronze ones."

Alice counted out five little bronze coins, and the owl held out his leg so Alice could put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then he flew off through the open window.

Hagrid yawned loudly, sat up, and stretched.

"Best be off, Alice, lots to do today, gotta get up to London and buy all your stuff for school."

Alice was turning over the witch coins and looking at them. She had just thought of something that made her feel as though the happy balloon inside her had got a puncture.

"Um - Hagrid?"

"Mm?" said Hagrid, who was pulling on his huge boots.

"I haven't got any money - and I don't think Uncle Vernon would let even Dudley pay for my schooling. You heard Uncle Vernon last night… he won't pay for me to go and learn magic. Not in any way."

"Don't worry about that," said Hagrid, standing up and scratching his head. "Do you think your parents didn't leave you anything?"

"But if their house was destroyed -"

"They didn't keep their gold in the house, girl! Nah, first stop for us is Gringotts. Wizards' bank. Have a sausage, they're not bad cold - and I wouldn't say no to a bit of your birthday cake, neither."

"Wizards and witches have banks?"

"Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins."

Alice dropped the bit of sausage she was holding.

"Goblins?"

"Yeah - so you'd be mad to try and rob it, I'll tell you that. Never mess with goblins, Alice. Gringotts is the safest place in the world for anything you want to keep safe - except maybe Hogwarts. As a matter of fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. For Dumbledore. Hogwarts business." Hagrid drew himself up proudly. "He usually gets me to do important stuff for him. Fetching you - getting things from Gringotts - knows he can trust me, see.

"Got everything? Come on, then."

Alice followed Hagrid out onto the rock. The sky was quite clear now and the sea gleamed in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Vernon had hired was still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.

"How did you get here?" Alice asked, looking around for another boat.

"Flew," said Hagrid.

"Flew?!"

"Yeah - but we'll go back in this. Not supposed to do magic now I've got you."

They settled down in the boat, Alice still staring at Hagrid, trying to imagine him flying.

"Seems a shame to row, though," said Hagrid, giving Alice another of his sideways looks. "If I was to - er - speed things up a bit, would you mind not mentioning it at Hogwarts?"

"Of course not," said Alice, eager to see more magic. Hagrid pulled out the pink umbrella again, tapped it twice on the side of the boat, and they sped off toward land.

"Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?" Alice asked.

"Spells - enchantments," said Hagrid, unfolding his newspaper as he spoke. "They say there's dragons guarding the high security vaults. And then you've got to find your way around - Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground. You'd die of hunger trying to get out, even if you did manage to get your hands on something."

Alice sat and thought about this while Hagrid read his newspaper, the Daily Prophet. Alice had learned from Uncle Vernon that people liked to be left alone while they did this, but it was very difficult, she'd never had so many questions in her life.

"Ministry of Magic messing things up as usual," Hagrid muttered, turning the page.

"There's a Ministry of Magic?" Alice asked, before she could stop herself.

"'Course," said Hagrid. "They wanted Dumbledore for Minister, of course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts, so old Cornelius Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one. So he pelts Dumbledore with owls every morning, asking for advice."

"But what does a Ministry of Magic do?"

"Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there's still witches and wizards up and down the country."

"Why?"

"Why?! Blimey, Alice, everyone would be wanting magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone."

At this moment the boat bumped gently into the harbor wall. Hagrid folded up his newspaper, and they clambered up the stone steps onto the street.

Passersby stared a lot at Hagrid as they walked through the little town to the station. Not only was Hagrid twice as tall as anyone else, he kept pointing at perfectly ordinary things like parking meters and saying loudly, "See that, Alice? Things these Muggles dream up, eh?"

"Hagrid," Alice said more than once, "I honestly have no idea sometimes what to say to you." Hagrid would just chuckle.

"Hagrid," said Alice at last, "did you say there are dragons at Gringotts?"

"Well, so they say," said Hagrid. "Crikey, I'd like a dragon."

"You'd… like one?"

"Wanted one ever since I was a kid - here we go."

They had reached the station. There was a train to London in five minutes' time. Hagrid, who didn't understand "Muggle money" as he called it, gave the bills to Alice so she could buy their tickets.

People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent. Alice sat elegantly and patiently and pretended not to notice the staring, which probably just made the image funnier.

"Still got your letter, Alice?" Hagrid asked as he counted stitches.

Alice took the parchment envelope out of her pocket.

"Good," said Hagrid. "There's a list in there of everything you need."

Alice unfolded a second piece of paper she hadn't noticed the night before, and read:

 _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

 _Uniform_

 _First-year students will require:_

 _Three sets of plain work robes (black)_

 _One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear_

 _One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)_

 _One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)_

 _Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags._

 _Course Books_

 _All students should have a copy of each of the following:_

 _The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk_

 _A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot_

 _Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling_

 _A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch_

 _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore_

 _Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger_

 _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander_

 _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble_

 _Other Equipment_

 _1 wand_

 _1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)_

 _1 set glass or crystal vials_

 _1 telescope_

 _1 set brass scales_

 _Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad._

 _PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS_

"Can we buy all this in London?" Alice wondered aloud.

"If you know where to go," said Hagrid.

* * *

Alice had never been to London before. Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way. Alice calmly talked him through it as he got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.

"I don't know how the Muggles manage without magic," he said, Alice patiently and determinedly oblivious, as they climbed a broken-down escalator that led up to a bustling road lined with shops.

Hagrid was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all Alice had to do was keep close behind him. They passed book shops and music stores, hamburger restaurants and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary people. Could there really be piles of witch's gold buried miles beneath them? Were there really shops that sold spell books and broomsticks? Might this not all be some huge joke the Dursleys had cooked up? If Alice hadn't known that the Dursleys had no sense of humor, she might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything Hagrid had told her so far was unbelievable, Alice couldn't help trusting him.

"This is it," said Hagrid, coming to a halt, "the Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place."

It was a tiny, old-fashioned pub with a dark wood front and a painted oval sign hung out on a rod, wood plank flapping slightly in the breeze. The Leaky Cauldron seemed somewhat grubby; even the sign seemed coated in very old soot.

If Hagrid hadn't pointed the Leaky Cauldron out, Alice wouldn't have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn't glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other, and they strolled farther down Charing Cross Road as if they couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, Alice had the most peculiar feeling that only she and Hagrid could see it. Before she could mention this, Hagrid had steered her inside.

For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. It had lots of little dark wood tables, a long bar with gleaming metal instruments behind it, a fireplace off to the right side, and a staircase off to the left side that must lead up to the rooms. Even the flower-printed wallpaper seemed again old and sooty. A few old women were sitting in a corner drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut.

"They're all wearing ordinary clothes," Alice murmured, frowning. "But with some very old-fashioned additions."

"Yeah, well," said Hagrid, "we do wear Muggle clothes, mostly. Robes are mostly traditional things, for special or official occasions, they don't really have a fashion. Only eccentrics always wear robes. And we tend to live longer than Muggles, so you'll see a lot of people walking around dressed up in some very old fashioned Muggle garments - the kind they wore when they were young. When we're out among Muggles and we want to spot each other, though, we always try to wear purple and green. Those are our colors."

The low buzz of chatter in the Leaky Cauldron had stopped by this point. Everyone seemed to know Hagrid; they waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a glass, saying, "The usual, Hagrid?"

"Can't, Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business," said Hagrid, clapping his great hand on Alice's shoulder and marking Alice's knees buckle.

"Good Lord," said the bartender, peering at Alice, "is this - can this be -?"

The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.

"Bless my soul," whispered the old bartender, "Alice Potter… what an honor."

He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward Alice and seized her hand, tears in his eyes.

"Welcome back, Miss Potter, welcome back."

Alice didn't know what to say. Everyone was looking at her. The old woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out. Hagrid was beaming.

Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Alice found herself shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron. Two particularly old-fashioned men bowed over her hand again, the second time that had happened in her life.

"Doris Crockford, Miss Potter, can't believe I'm meeting you at last."

"So proud, Miss Potter, I'm just so proud."

"Always wanted to shake your hand - I'm all of a flutter."

"Delighted, Miss Potter, just can't tell you, Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle."

"I've seen you before!" said Alice, as Dedalus Diggle's top hat fell off in his excitement. "You bowed to me once in a shop."

"She remembers!" cried Dedalus Diggle, looking around at everyone. "Did you hear that? She remembers me!"

Alice shook and offered her hand again and again - Doris Crockford kept coming back for more; those same two men wouldn't stop bowing.

A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching.

"Professor Quirrell!" said Hagrid. "Alice, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."

"P-P-Potter," stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Alice's hand, "c-can't t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you."

"What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?"

"D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts," muttered Professor Quirrell, as though he'd rather not think about it. "N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-P-Potter?" He laughed nervously.

"Oh, I'm sure you have so much to teach me," said Alice eagerly, remembering her promise to become a great witch from the night before. "Professor, I'm particularly interested, what can a witch do after she leaves school? I aim to become someone special, you see."

"S-some would s-s-say you already a-are," said Professor Quirrell, smiling anxiously and seeming surprised.

"But I want to actually do something. Not just have something happen to me," said Alice firmly. "Not necessarily something great… just something that proves I'm a worthwhile witch."

"You don't have to prove that to anyone, Alice," said Hagrid.

"Except to myself," said Alice. "So, Professor." She turned back to him, eagle-eyed. "Is there anything in particular I should study? What are my career options?" She lifted her head. She wanted to know what a witch could do after she left school.

"W-well…" said Professor Quirrell thoughtfully, apparently interested to be asked a scholarly question. "Th-there are really f-four ways to go. There are the w-working class jobs - sh-shop clerk, caretaker. There are the jobs that are e-everywhere - p-professor, journalist, lawyer, g-government worker, Au-Aurors are a bit like policemen, and then Potioneers for Apothecaries are rather like ph-pharmacists in the Muggle world, while Healers are rather like d-doctors. No b-banking; th-that's goblin purview. There are jobs in any of the arts, though one would replace f-film with th-theater in our world, as we don't have t-television or the Internet; we even have our kind of p-professional sports. Then there are specifically m-magical jobs - working with m-magical creatures or in magical experimentation and theory, working on the magic surrounding G-Gringotts vaults, alchemy, that sort of thing. There are even people who specifically s-study sentient magical creature languages, or M-Muggle culture. And there are people who magically reconfigure w-wizarding technology, electricity normally being incompatible with m-magic, to f-fit into our old-fashioned w-world.

"You have m-many options, Miss Potter. N-n-never forget that."

"That sounds wonderful…" said Alice softly, watching him intently.

"Professor Quirrell knows, 'cause he used to teach Muggle Studies," said Hagrid proudly. "That's a third-year elective. He changed subjects."

"Really? That's interesting," said Alice thoughtfully. "What made you go from one to the other?"

Nervous Professor Quirrell looked like he was beginning to wonder the same thing himself. He was still pale; one of his eyes was still twitching. "Oh, j-just wanted a change." He tried for a trembling, brave smile. "S-so, P-P-Potter, you'll be g-g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I've g-got to pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself." He looked terrified at the very thought.

"I can't wait to buy books. I'll have to start out with lots of extras," said Alice, smiling. Hearing her countless career options had excited her, opened her eyes to all the things she could do with her life if she took her studies seriously enough. This world, with its modern clothes and its selective technology and its fantastical careers, was like the ordinary world on steroids. All those careers… how would she be able to choose just one?!

But the others wouldn't let Professor Quirrell keep Alice to himself. It took almost ten more minutes to get away from them all. At last, Hagrid managed to make himself heard over the babble.

"Must get on - lots to buy. Come on, Alice."

Doris Crockford shook Alice's hand one last time, and Hagrid led them through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a trash can and a few weeds.

Hagrid grinned at Alice.

"Told you, didn't I? Told you you was famous. Even Professor Quirrell was trembling to meet you - mind you, he's usually trembling."

"Is he always that nervous?"

"Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studying out of books, but then he took a year off to get some firsthand experience… They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit of trouble with a hag - never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject - now, where's me umbrella?"

Hagrid found it, took it out of his coat pocket, and began counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.

"Three up… two across…" he muttered. "Right, stand back, Alice."

He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.

The brick he had touched quivered - it wriggled - in the middle a small hole appeared - it grew wider and wider - a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street full of colorful little shop buildings that twisted and turned out of sight.

"Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley."

He grinned at Alice's amazement. They stepped through the archway. Alice looked quickly over her shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.

The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons - All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver - Self Stirring - Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them. The shop was called Potages.

"Yeah, you'll be needing one," said Hagrid, "but we've got to get your money first."

Alice wished she had about eight more eyes. She turned her head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad…"

A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium - Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Alice's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Alice heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand - fastest ever…" Meanwhile, several girls of about Alice's age were oohing and aahing outside the windows of a department store advertising itself as Gladrags Wizardwear. There were shops selling antique robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Alice had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon…

"Gringotts," said Hagrid.

They had reached a snowy white marble building with Grecian columns that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was -

"Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Alice. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Alice noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:

 _Enter, stranger, but take heed_

 _Of what awaits the sin of greed,_

 _For those who take, but do not earn,_

 _Must pay most dearly in their turn._

 _So if you seek beneath our floors_

 _A treasure that was never yours,_

 _Thief, you have been warned, beware_

 _Of finding more than treasure there._

"Like I said, you'd be mad to try and rob it," said Hagrid.

A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid and Alice made for the counter.

"Morning," said Hagrid to a free goblin. "We've come to take some money out of Miss Alice Potter's safe."

"You have her key, sir?"

"Got it here somewhere," said Hagrid, and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits over the goblin's book of numbers. The goblin wrinkled his nose. Alice watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.

"Got it," said Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key.

The goblin looked at it closely.

"That seems to be in order."

Alice took the key and tucked it deep in her pocket.

"And I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."

The goblin read the letter carefully.

"Very well," he said, handing it back to Hagrid. "I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"

Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed all of the dog biscuits back inside his pockets, he and Alice followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.

"What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?" Alice asked.

"Can't tell you that," said Hagrid mysteriously. "Very secret. Hogwarts business. Dumbledore's trusted me. More than my job's worth to tell you that."

Griphook held the door open for them. Alice, who had expected more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in - Hagrid with some difficulty - and were off.

At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passageways. Alice tried to remember left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn't steering.

Alice's eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but she kept them wide open. Once, she thought she saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late - they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.

"I never know," Alice called to Hagrid over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite."

"Stalagmite's got an 'm' in it," said Hagrid. "And don't ask me questions just now, I think I'm gonna be sick."

He did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.

So Alice asked Griphook. "Griphook - just what does my family's money look like?" She thought this to be an important thing to know, if she was going to try and know everything that was important.

"Well." Griphook paused thoughtfully. "You had an ancestor in the twelfth century who invented several commonly used medicinal potions. You get a cut of money every single time a Skele-Gro Potion or a Pepperup Potion is made, bought, and sold. That's a limb regrowing potion and the cure for the common cold."

Alice's eyes had widened.

"So you have quite a bit of money," said Griphook casually. "The Potters are one of our oldest and wealthiest families. You have the trust fund you can access now, and then the main Potter family vault when you come of age at seventeen. The main vault continually refills the trust vault, and the medicinal potions continually refill the main vault. Do you see?"

Alice did see.

"The family vault is cursed with an ever-growing spell. The minute a piece of gold is touched, it continues to magically multiply false gold until eventually the thief drowns in a pile of the money they themselves wanted. The trust vault is cursed with toxic fumes - they come out every time the vault is opened, and are only harmless to those with good intentions and those who belong. So a bit milder.

"You are worth several million Galleons a year. In Muggle terms that makes you a billionaire," said Griphook, smirking.

A billionaire. Alice was speechless, completely floored.

But that was nothing compared to what was about to come.

Alice's trust vault was number six hundred and eighty seven. Griphook unlocked the door with the tiny golden key, then gave it back to Alice. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Alice gasped, wordless. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.

"All yours," smiled Hagrid.

All Alice's - it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from her faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Alice cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a fortune belonging to her, buried deep under London.

"... Can this be transferred over into Muggle pounds, any of it?" she asked intently.

"As much as you wish, Miss Potter," said Griphook with a slow, wicked smile.

"... I would like to do that when we get back to the hall," she said, determination forming over her expression. She would finally be able to pay back Dudley.

Hagrid helped Alice pile some of it into a bag.

"The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough. Right, that should be enough for a couple of terms, we'll keep the rest safe for you." He turned to Griphook. "Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?"

"One speed only," said Griphook.

They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled around tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Alice leaned over to try to see what was at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groaned and pulled her back by the scruff of her neck.

Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.

"Stand back," said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door with one of his long fingers and it simply melted away.

"If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," said Griphook.

"How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Alice asked.

"About once every ten years," said Griphook with a rather nasty grin.

Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault, Alice was sure, and she leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least - but at first she thought it was empty. Then she noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Alice longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.

"Come on, back inside this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best if I keep me mouth shut," said Hagrid.

* * *

One wild cart ride and exchange of some of Alice's money at the counter later, they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Alice didn't know where to run first now that she had a bag full of witch's gold. She knew she was holding more money than she'd had in her whole life - more money than even Dudley had ever had.

"Might as well get your uniform," said Hagrid, nodding toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Alice, would you mind if I slipped off for a pick me up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, so Alice entered Madam Malkin's shop alone, feeling nervous.

Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.

"Hogwarts, dear?" she said, when Alice started to speak. "Got the lot here. A young man your age being fitted up just now, in fact."

In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood Alice on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over her head, and began to pin it to the right length.

"Hello," said the boy. "Hogwarts, too?"

"Yes," said Alice.

"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

Alice felt a sharp spurt of distaste.

"I don't suppose you've got your own broom or play Quidditch at all, being a girl," the boy supposed slowly.

Whether Quidditch was a game or a sport, Alice was skeptical.

"You think I can't fly a broom because I'm a woman?" she asked, exasperated.

The boy flushed a little, seeming embarrassed. "Well, if you put it like that," he muttered. "... Yes." He recovered, smirking.

Alice was still wondering what on earth Quidditch could be and why broom flying was reserved for men. She was beginning to strongly dislike this boy.

"I play Quidditch," the boy continued. "Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"

"No," said Alice, feeling more stupid by the minute.

"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been - imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"Mmm," said Alice, wishing she could say something a bit more interesting.

"I say, look at that man!" said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Alice and pointing at two large ice cream cones to show he couldn't come in.

"That's Hagrid," said Alice, brightening. "He works at Hogwarts."

"Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

"He's the gamekeeper," said Alice. She was liking this boy less and less every second.

"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage - lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."

"Hagrid is a good person and a good friend," said Alice, frowning. "And not nearly as dim as you think."

"Really?" The boy sneered again. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"

"They're dead," said Alice shortly. She didn't feel much like going into the matter with this boy.

"Oh, sorry," said the boy, not sounding sorry at all. "But they were our kind, weren't they?"

"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."

"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families. What's your surname, anyway?"

But before Alice could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear," and Alice, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped off the footstool.

"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy.

Alice was rather quiet as she ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought her (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).

"What's up?" said Hagrid.

"Nothing," Alice lied. They stopped to buy parchment and quills. Alice cheered up a bit when she found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote. When they had left the shop, she said, "Hagrid, what's Quidditch?"

"Blimey, Alice, I keep forgetting how little you know - not knowing about Quidditch!"

"Don't make me feel worse," said Alice. She told Hagrid about the pale boy in Madam Malkin's.

"- and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in -"

"You're not from a Muggle family. If he'd known who you were - he's grown up knowing your name if his parents are wizarding folk. You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw you. Anyway, what does he know about it, some of the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in them in a long line of Muggles - look at your mum! Look what she had for a sister!"

"I just feel like I've been wanting so badly to fit in here, to be a great witch who studies really hard, but what if it's impossible? What if I just don't fit in?" said Alice, earnest and upset as she stopped on the street to look up at Hagrid.

"You want to know the truth?" said Hagrid seriously. "The truth is that the boy you met just loves mocking people. Wizarding folk, wizards and witches, are good at accepting everyone - women, gay people, people of different races - we're great at accepting everyone, except for the people unlike us in the biggest way. People who come from Muggle families.

"But that doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make it true. You can fit in; you can be a great witch if you set your mind to it. Never let anyone make you think differently because they don't like things that are different. Okay?"

He looked underneath his thick eyebrows at her. At last, Alice's face broke into a smile.

"... Okay," she said. "So what is Quidditch?"

"It's our sport. Wizard sport, and yes witches do play it too. It's like - like football in the Muggle world - everyone follows Quidditch - played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls - sort of hard to explain the rules."

"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"

"School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuffs are a lot of duffers, but -"

"I bet I'm in Hufflepuff," said Alice gloomily.

"Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly. "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one."

"Vol-, sorry - You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?"

"Years and years ago," said Hagrid.

They bought Alice's school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps covered in silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. Here, Alice went mad. Determined to become a powerful witch, she decided she had to narrow her extra reading down to a specific point of focus, and she went for the intricacies of magic itself. Magical theory, learning, and mastery as well as potions and magical plants and creatures - those were her choices outside of school.

"I figure I'll learn everything I need to about wizarding culture and history over time and at Hogwarts," she told Hagrid excitedly, lifting up her gigantic pile of extra books and tottering under the weight. "But I must learn as much as possible about magic, if I'm to become a powerful witch!"

"Half that magic you couldn't even work yet. At least half," said Hagrid, bewildered. "You'll need a lot more study before you get to that level."

"But there's no harm in starting my studies early. Right? Come on, Hagrid, they're books to do with school. Parents usually want their kids to take an interest in that," Alice sighed, peeking big green bespectacled eyes out from behind the pile of books in her arms.

"Well, all right," said Hagrid skeptically. "Just do me a favor and don't practice anything that says it's past first or second year, okay? We don't want you passing out."

Alice also bought wizarding versions of some of her favorite hobbies while around Flourish and Blotts. She bought some wizarding fairy tales, some books of wizarding poetry for writing purposes, and a book full of all the most beautiful and rarest magical creatures and plants on the planet. She added a few posters of moving wizarding nature paintings into her collection, paintings of various sanctuaries where lots of magical creatures and plants inhabited.

To her fascination, all the pictures moved. The poster paintings, the book pictures and covers. Even the artistic images writhed and moved around their covers as though alive, and the person-like sentient subjects waved and made personality appropriate movements and signs from the pictures, sometimes disappearing from the frame for a while altogether.

"That's all our pictures - art, photographs. It all moves around," said Hagrid. "Most wizards and witches can't believe it when Muggleborns tell them everything just stays put in Muggle pictures. Very strange indeed."

Hagrid finally put his foot down and wouldn't let Alice buy a solid gold cauldron ("It says pewter on your list"), but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Alice (the expensive kit, complete with crystal vials and expensive black dragonhide protective gloves), Alice herself examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).

Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Alice's list again.

"Just your wand left - oh yeah, and I still haven't got you a birthday present."

Alice felt herself go red.

"You don't have to -"

"I know I don't have to. Tell you what, I'll get your animal. Not a toad, toads went out of fashion years ago, you'd be laughed at - and I don't like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get you an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry your mail and everything."

Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Alice now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing. She couldn't stop thanking Hagrid fervently.

"Don't mention it," said Hagrid gruffly. "Don't expect you've had a lot of presents from them Dursleys. Just Ollivanders left now - only place for wands, Ollivanders, and you gotta have the best wand."

A magic wand… this was what Alice had really been looking forward to.

The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands Since 382 B.C. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.

A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair that Hagrid sat on to wait. Alice felt strangely as though she had entered a very strict library; she swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to her and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of her neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.

"Good afternoon," said a soft voice. Alice jumped. Hagrid must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair.

An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.

"Hello," said Alice awkwardly.

"Ah, yes," said the man. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Alice Potter." It wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."

Mr Ollivander moved closer to Alice. Alice wished he would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy.

"Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for Transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it - it's really the wand that chooses the witch or wizard, of course."

Mr Ollivander had come so close that he and Alice were almost nose to nose. Alice could see herself reflected in those misty eyes.

"And that's where…"

Mr Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Alice's forehead with a long, white finger.

"I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it," he said softly. "Thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands… well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do…"

He shook his head and then, to Alice's relief, spotted Hagrid.

"Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again… Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?"

"It was, sir, yes," said Hagrid.

"Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?" said Mr Ollivander, suddenly stern.

"Er - yes, they did, yes," said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. "I've still got the pieces, though," he added brightly.

"But you don't use them?" said Mr Ollivander sharply.

"Oh, no, sir," said Hagrid quickly. Alice noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.

"Hmmm," said Mr Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look. "Well, now - Miss Potter. Let me see." He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"

"Er - well, I'm right-handed," said Alice.

"Hold out your arm. That's it." He measured Alice from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round her head. As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Miss Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another witch's wand."

Alice suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between her nostrils, was doing this on its own. Mr Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.

"That will do," he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. "Right then, Miss Potter. Try this one. Beech wood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Just take it and give it a wave."

Alice took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit, but Mr Ollivander snatched it out of her hand almost at once.

"No, no - here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out."

Alice tried. And tried. She had no idea what Mr Ollivander was waiting for. The pile of tried wands mounted higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.

"Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere - I wonder, now - yes, why not - rowan and phoenix feather, nine and three quarter inches, reasonably supple."

Alice took the firm, straight grained brown wand. She felt a sudden warmth in her fingers. She raised the wand above her head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on the walls. Hagrid whooped and clapped and Mr Ollivander cried, "Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well… how curious… how very curious…"

He put Alice's wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, "Curious… curious…"

"Sorry," said Alice, "but what's curious?"

Mr Ollivander fixed Alice with his pale stare.

"First, there is the meaning behind your wand wood. And I will explain why it is interesting in a moment.

"Rowan wood has always been much-favoured for wands, because it is reputed to be more protective than any other, and in my experience renders all manner of defensive charms especially strong and difficult to break. It is commonly stated that no dark witch or wizard ever owned a rowan wand, and I cannot recall a single instance where one of my own rowan wands has gone on to do evil in the world. Rowan is most happily placed with the clear-headed and the pure-hearted, but this reputation for virtue ought not to fool anyone - these wands are the equal of any, often the better, and frequently out-perform others in duels.

"Now, why is this interesting?

"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Miss Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather - just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its mate - why, its mate gave you that scar."

Alice swallowed.

"Yes, thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the witch, remember… I think we must expect great things from you, Miss Potter… After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things - terrible, yes, but great."

Alice shivered. She wasn't sure she liked Mr Ollivander too much. The thought of doing great things should have been welcome, but somehow in this context it was just creepy and overwhelming. She paid seven gold Galleons for her wand, and Mr Ollivander bowed them from his shop.

* * *

The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Alice and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back through the Leaky Cauldron, now empty. Alice didn't speak at all as they walked down the road; she didn't even notice how much people were gawking at them on the Underground, laden as they were with all their funny-shaped packages, with the snowy owl asleep in its cage on Alice's lap. Up another escalator, out into Paddington station; Alice only realized where they were when Hagrid tapped her on the shoulder.

"Got time for a bite to eat before your train leaves," he said.

He bought Alice a hamburger and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them. Alice kept looking around. Everything looked so strange, somehow.

"You all right, Alice? You're very quiet," said Hagrid.

Alice wasn't sure she could explain. She'd just had the best birthday of her life - and yet - she chewed her hamburger, trying to find the words.

"Everyone thinks I'm special," she said at last. "Before I've even done anything, I mean. All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr Ollivander… but I don't know anything about magic at all yet! How can they expect great things from me already? I'm famous and I can't even remember what I'm famous for! I don't know what happened when Vol-, sorry - I mean, the night my parents died."

Hagrid leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows, he wore a very kind smile.

"Don't you worry, Alice. You're one of the keenest kids I've met so far, and everyone learns fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you'll be just fine. Just be yourself. I know it's hard. You've been singled out, and that's always hard. But you'll have a great time at Hogwarts - I did - still do, as a matter of fact. And after that… just think what Quirrell said. You've got your whole life as a witch ahead of you."

Alice nodded. "I meant what I said," she added, determination forming over her features. "I want to prove myself - to myself as much as to anyone else. Those extra books on magic will be a start. There's just so much exciting knowledge out there that I can learn… so many future options to choose from."

"Well, luckily you've got a few years to figure it out," Hagrid chuckled. "Hey, you know what you could do? Do you remember the deputy headmistress, Professor McGonagall, from your acceptance letter?"

Alice nodded curiously.

"Write to her this summer, while you're reading and studying! She's usually a rather strict sort, but I think she'd like you. She loves tutoring keen young witches who ask for her help.

"You could ask her how to practice spells and potions, or about what you're reading, or about what you should study and what you should memorize. She'd be great for that! Ask her for study and training tips. She's much less of a stickler for rules or a stickler for needless knowledge than one might expect, and she's brilliant - especially with magic, but she was a Halfblood, so she could probably answer just about any question you had. She could teach you how to practice magic, and how to memorize important sections of readings, without you having to memorize the whole thing as though you'd just swallowed the textbook."

"... I'll do that," said Alice thoughtfully. "Thanks, Hagrid."

Hagrid helped Alice onto the train that would take her back to the Dursleys, then handed her an envelope.

"Your ticket for Hogwarts," he said. "First of September - King's Cross - it's all on your ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with your owl, she knows how to find just about anyone… See you soon, Alice."

The train pulled out of the station. Alice wanted to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight; she rose in her seat and pressed her nose against the window, but she blinked and Hagrid had gone.


	5. Alice Five

_Alice Five_

Alice's last month with the Dursleys in some ways wasn't fun. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't shut Alice in her cupboard, force her to do anything, or shout at her - in fact, they didn't speak to her at all. Half terrified, half furious, they acted as though any chair with Alice in it were empty. Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did become a bit depressing after a while.

Alice kept to her room, with her new owl for company. She had decided to call her owl Hedwig, a name she had found in A History of Magic. Her school books were very interesting. She lay on her bed reading late into the night, Hedwig swooping in and out of the open window as she pleased. It was lucky that Aunt Petunia didn't come in to vacuum anymore, because Hedwig kept bringing back dead mice. Every night before she went to sleep, Alice ticked off another day on the piece of paper she had pinned to the wall, counting down to September the first.

Dudley, unlike his parents, was actually friendly to Alice, as well as very curious about her new world. He sat on the floor of her bedroom, wide-eyed, as she told him riveting stories and pieces of information from what she had already learned of the wizarding world. She waved her hands theatrically from her bed, face excited and eyes big.

Dudley, a video game fanatic, was entranced. "You're like a fantasy game character now!" he said excitedly. "You have a specialized weapon and everything!"

Alice blushed, pleased.

Alice also tried to pay Dudley back for all his years of kindness with her new secret wellspring of Muggle money. They visited countless shops as she bought him even more new things than he already had. She had promised to buy Dudley whatever he wanted - as long as he never told his parents about her secret fortune. "I don't think Muggles could take away the Potter accounts, but just in case," she warned him.

"My lips are sealed," he assured her.

"You never to worry about money again," said Alice, smiling. "That's my thanks for all you did for me as a kid. I'll send you money every month when we're both adults, and if you ever have any trouble, you just let me know."

She also wrote to Professor McGonagall through Hedwig, as Hagrid had suggested. She gave Hedwig the first letter, told Hedwig uncertainly to give it to Professor Minerva McGonagall at Hogwarts, and Hedwig had swooped away. A bit to Alice's surprise, in under two days Professor McGonagall had responded back and the letter did reach her back through Hedwig.

 _Yes, I would be willing to tutor you. I am always willing to help new students, most especially smart young witches from a Muggle background, with anything they wish to learn. I have attached some study suggestions I have written. Write back to me this summer with any questions you have._

 _Professor M. McGonagall_

Alice's eyes widened. Attached to the letter were at least ten full sheets of parchment paper, chock-filled with writing.

Alice read them all and took each and every suggestion. She learned the memorization techniques Professor McGonagall had outlined, learned to look out for and memorize the important sections of each school book that Professor McGonagall had highlighted for her, and she began practicing potions and spells. She learned the fire spell first, so that she could light a magically hovering fire underneath her cauldron, the window open, and practice potions in her bedroom. After that she practiced both spells and potions at least well into the first year level, with Professor McGonagall's help and tips. She got an early, steady foundation and head start.

She didn't know how far ahead people from wizarding families would be, so she hoped that would be enough.

She also read through and memorized the important sections from her extra books on magical craft, magical theory, potions, and magical plants and creatures. She used that last month to cram her head full of as much training and knowledge on the art of magic itself as was possible to have.

Her history school book, A History of Magic, was the only thing that taught her anything about the culture and practices of the actual world she'd be entering - she did read entirely through and memorize all the important sections of that book as well. She got a thorough grounding on the basic outline of the wizarding world and its history, but that was about it. She couldn't have memorized everything, she'd needed a specific point of focus, so she just hoped she could trust that she would learn enough about the wizarding world over her time inside it.

Quite frankly, she'd been more interested in the art of magical theory than in the intricacies of wizarding culture anyway.

By the end of the summer, could she regurgitate whole pages word for word? No. But she'd memorized all the vocabulary, buzzwords, and important pieces of information, as well as being well on her way to going above and beyond in actual magical practice. She felt that was more important. It was good to keep ahead, she had learned from Professor McGonagall, whose lessons would stick with her on her road to becoming an accomplished witch. She finally felt like she was learning skills and on her way to graduation and one of those fanciful careers, so it was all quite exciting. Alice began taking her wand around with her in her pocket everywhere she went - she needed it even for potions, so she made sure to keep it handy.

Professor McGonagall's replies had gotten longer and warmer by the end of the summer. She said that Alice asked bright questions and Alice felt that Professor McGonagall had become rather fond of her.

On the last day of August she thought she'd better speak to her aunt and uncle about getting to King's Cross station the next day, so she went down into the living room where they were watching a quiz show on television. She cleared her throat to let them know she was there. Only Dudley looked directly at her.

"Er - Uncle Vernon?"

Uncle Vernon grunted to show he was listening.

"Er - I need to be at King's Cross Station tomorrow to - to go to Hogwarts."

Uncle Vernon grunted again.

"Would it be all right if you gave me a lift?"

Grunt. Alice supposed that meant yes.

"Thank you."

She was about to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon actually spoke.

"Funny way to get to a witch's school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?"

Alice didn't say anything.

"Where is this school, anyway?"

"I don't know," said Alice, realizing this for the first time. She pulled the ticket Hagrid had given her out of her pocket.

"I just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o'clock," she read.

Her aunt and uncle stared.

"Platform what?"

"Nine and three-quarters."

"Don't talk rubbish," said Uncle Vernon. "There is no platform nine and three-quarters."

"It's on my ticket."

"Barking," said Uncle Vernon, "howling mad, the lot of them. You'll see. You just wait. All right, we'll take you to King's Cross. We're going up to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn't bother."

"Why are you going to London?" Alice asked, trying to keep things friendly.

"I'm going to the hospital," growled Uncle Vernon. "I'm having that ruddy tail removed."

* * *

Alice woke at five o'clock the next morning and was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. She got up and pulled on her clothes because she didn't want to walk into the station in her witch's robes - she'd change into her uniform on the train. She checked her Hogwarts list yet again to make sure she had everything she needed, saw that Hedwig was shut safely in her cage, and then paced her bedroom, waiting for the Dursleys to get up. Two hours later, Alice's huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the Dursleys' car, Dudley had been seated next to Alice, and they had set off.

They reached King's Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Alice's trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for her. Alice thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.

"Well, there you are, girl. Platform nine - platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"

He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.

"Have a good term," said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Alice turned and saw the Dursleys' car drive away. Her aunt and uncle were laughing, her cousin with his worried face pressed against the back window. Alice's mouth went rather dry. What on earth was she going to do? She was starting to attract a lot of funny looks, because of Hedwig. She'd have to ask someone.

She stopped a passing guard, but didn't dare mention platform nine and three-quarters. The guard had never heard of Hogwarts and when Alice couldn't even tell him what part of the country it was in, he started to get annoyed, as though Alice was being stupid on purpose. Getting desperate, Alice asked for the train at eleven o'clock, but the guard said there wasn't one. In the end the guard strode away, muttering about time wasters. Alice was now trying hard not to panic. According to the large clock over the arrivals board, she had ten minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts and she had no idea how to do it; she was stranded in the middle of a station with a trunk she could hardly lift, a pocket full of witch's gold, a magic wand, and a large owl.

Hagrid must have forgotten to tell her something you had to do, like tapping the third brick on the left to get into Diagon Alley. She wondered if she should get out her wand and start tapping the ticket inspector's stand between platforms nine and ten.

At that moment, a group of people passed just behind her and she caught a few words of what they were saying.

"- packed with Muggles, of course -"

Alice swung round. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Alice's in front of him - and they had an owl.

Heart hammering, Alice pushed her cart after them. They stopped and so did she, just near enough to hear what they were saying.

"Now, what's the platform number?" said the boys' mother.

"Nine and three quarters!" piped a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand, "Mum, can't I go…"

"You're not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first."

What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten. Alice watched, careful not to blink in case she missed it - but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.

"Fred, you next," said the plump woman.

"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George?"

"Sorry, George, dear."

"Only joking, I am Fred," said the boy, and off he went. His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone - but how had he done it?

Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier - he was almost there - and then, quite suddenly, he wasn't anywhere.

There was nothing else for it.

"Excuse me," Alice said to the plump woman.

"Hello, dear," she said. "First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too."

She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.

"Yes," said Alice. "The thing is - the thing is, I don't know how to -"

"How to get onto the platform?" she said kindly, and Alice nodded.

"Not to worry," she said. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."

"Er - okay," said Alice.

She pushed her trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.

She started to walk toward it. People jostled her on their way to platforms nine and ten. Alice walked more quickly. She was going to smash right into that barrier and then she'd be in trouble - leaning forward on her cart, she broke into a heavy run - the barrier was coming nearer and nearer - she wouldn't be able to stop - the cart was out of control - she was a foot away - she closed her eyes ready for the crash -

It didn't come… she kept on running… she opened her eyes.

A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven o'clock. Alice looked behind her and saw a wrought iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. She had done it.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.

The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. First years could even be seen through the windows, racing each other excitedly down the train corridor. Alice pushed her cart off down the platform in search of an empty seat. She passed a round-faced boy who was saying, "Gran, I've lost my toad again."

"Oh, Neville," she heard the old woman sigh.

A boy with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd.

"Give us a look, Lee, go on."

The boy lifted lid of a box in his arms, and the people around him shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.

Alice pressed on through the crowd until she found an empty compartment near the end of the train.

And this is where we pause. Because this moment is where Alice Potter - rowan wand, heavy loose-threaded warm sweaters and baggy asymmetrical shirts with hair ribbons and scarves, low pigtails and half-up boho hairstyles, round black horn-rimmed glasses, of writing, nature, friend picture collages, storybooks, and big poufs, practical and patient and hard but also motherly and warm and kind - this moment is where Alice Potter truly diverges from her three fellows completely.


End file.
